How Kolakube Will Help You Create a Design That Will Push Your Business Over the Edge

Minus a complex marketing strategy, plans to dominate social media and pressure to build a massive email list, what’s another “make it or break it” factor of a successful online business?

If you said “great design,” you’re right. But it’s not quite what you think.

A huge misconception about web design is that a design has to make people’s jaws drop to the floor. That everything needs to be flashy with smooth gradients, drop shadows and random JavaScript sliders.

The truth is, you don’t need any of that to have a great design.

When I was 14 years old, I created a “framework” of what great design should consist of. Through that framework (and a few years of hard work), I created two successful online businesses founded on the basis of great design.

Today, at the age of 18, I want to teach you how to use this framework to help improve your online business as well.

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How Oreos, Filthy Dishes and One Good Design Helped Skyrocket My Young Online Business Career

Alex ManginiMy name is Alex Mangini. I founded Kolakube on the eve of 2011 and have been designing since I was 13 years old.

I’ve helped hundreds of people with their websites in the past 4 years and work for DIYthemes, specializing in the Thesis Theme for WordPress.

My roots in entrepreneurship began when I was in Kindergarden. The first product I ever sold was Oreo cookies my mom packed in my lunch box every day.

I didn’t realize it then, but I was learning valuable lessons about marketing, working with others, and what it’s like to get in trouble for selling cookies in the school cafeteria.

Fast forward a few years, and you would have found me washing filthy dishes at my dad’s seafood restaurant in Florida. By this time, I was designing online forums and blogs as a hobby, not interested in making money from it.

Why? Well, I enjoyed this job at first. The way I was raised, I was told that I would find a low quality job, graduate high school, go to college and find the career of my dreams. I was happy that I was getting into that “system” so young.

The more and more I designed, however, the more and more I started to hate this job. It was a nightmare, and I had to get out and pursue that little hobby of mine.

Standing behind that dishwasher for a month made me realize that the “system” we all grow up wanting to live for is horrible, and that the only way I’d ever be happy is if I got out now.

So like any 14 year old, I went back home to New Jersey and spent every penny I had on an iMac.

How My First Online Business Succeeded
With Great Design

Only a few months later, I had launched my first business. By this time, I knew that if I was going to make it online, it would be through my design skills.

By the age of 15, that business was doing a low 3-figures a month.

At 16, it jumped to a high 4-figure a month income.

Then, at 17, I sold that business for a nice 5-figure price.

I wrote popular articles on good design, helped dozens of people set up their websites, and even made my first online product a Thesis Theme skin.

My businesses have all succeeded by connecting the reader and the design. From efficient code to great looks, I want to help you create a design that pushes your business over the edge.

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What People Are Saying About Alex and Kolakube

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My Timeline as a Young Entrepreneur

The more things I accomplish in business and in life, the more I get inspired to do even more. To give you an idea of how my career started, and to help you understand that you can do what you love, I documented my major accomplishments in the timeline below.

December 1999

I started my first business in Kindergarten and was based in the
school cafeteria selling Oreo cookies to classmates.

I didn't know it then, but those were my first baby steps towards starting
my first online business. I learned how to market a product, compete
with brutal competition (the school lunch ladies), come up with
sales pitches and be creative.

  1. Dinky Bomb

    February 2005

    In 6th grade, I played an online game called Dinky Bomb. I was absolutely addicted to this game and spent hours a day playing it.

    There was a forum community where all the gamers could discuss Dinky Bomb, and I had a lot of fun in that discussion forum.

    So naturally, I wanted to start my own forum community. I grew out of this game, and was quickly learning how to use Photoshop, text editors, databases and code to create my own forums.

  2. Summer dishwashing job

    Summer 2007

    My dad owns a restaurant in Florida, and I'd go there every summer to visit him and work there part-time.

    It was miserable. It was stressful. It smelled like fish. I hated it. But I never complained, and did a good job.

    In fact, I was doing a good enough job that one of the employees told me "Alex, you were born to wash dishes!"

    …it was only a joke, but hearing those words put everything into perspective for me. I realized I never wanted to do this again and that I needed to put life more into my own hands.

  3. Digital Point

    Aug. 2007 - Nov. 2007

    DigitalPoint.com is one of the largest webmaster forums online. Through this forum, I sold Photoshop website designs, proxy websites, domain names and learned a lot about running a successful website.

    There was this one Photoshop design in particular that I created, and absolutely loved to where I could not sell it.

    I had to use it for very first blog.

  4. Kolakube Blogging Tips

    December 2007

    About a month later, I turned that Photoshop design into my first website: Kolakube! Back then, it was purely a blogging tips blog.

    The design went over well, and got a ton of positive feedback.

    Kolakube blogging tips only lasted a couple of weeks until…

  5. Blogussion Blogging Tips

    January 1st, 2008

    … me and one of my friends (who was also 15 years old with his own blogging tips blog) merged our two sites together to become: Blogussion — Blogging Discussion, Tips & Tricks.

    We kept the same Kolakube design, and wrote great content. It was the start of something huge.

  6. Thesis Theme for WordPress

    April 2009

    After over a year at Blogussion, I wasn't really making that much money. That was, until I converted the theme to the popular Thesis framework. It was a huge hit in the Thesis community.

    I used Thesis to not only improve the site's SEO and functionality, but to make money off the affiliate program and taking on freelance web design clients.

  7. From Planning to Earning

    August 2009

    We decided it was time to make more money. I was running the site with my good friend Seth Waite, and we developed a course that was called From Planning to Earning.

    Through developing this course, I learned about the power of email marketing, cornerstone content and how to make money with my own product.

  8. Blogussion Theme for Thesis

    January 1st, 2010

    After getting more requests than I could count for a copy of the theme I was using on Blogussion, I decided to make it a premium skin for Thesis and sell it for $64.99 a piece.

    This was my first product I put out with a price tag attached to it, and it made around $xx,xxx in the time I owned the right to the theme.

    It's fun to think about, because I remember launching the theme during a (late) family Christmas party, and then bragging to everyone each time I made a sale!

  9. Nominated top blogger in 2010

    October + June 2010

    In October, I was listed as one of the top 50 bloggers in the world by Income Diary. And then again, in June by Robb Sutton as a top 30 blogger in 2010.

  10. Kolakube Premium Thesis skins

    January 1st, 2011

    After the success of the Blogussion Theme, I knew that my future was making more Thesis skins to sell. After a few months of working on my new venture, I started to grow out of Blogussion

    And keeping up the tradition of January 1st launches, I (re)launched Kolakube as a business to sell premium Thesis skins.

  11. Working with DIYthemes

    March 2011

    Kolakube had it's major ups and downs, and I learned a ton from these both.

    In March of 2011, I was recruited by the DIYthemes team to help well-known people in their niches convert to Thesis.

    I've worked with some great people such as Lewis Howes, Derek Halpern, Jeremy Schoemaker, Neil Patel and others on some great projects.

  12. Graduated High School 2011

    June 2011

    In June 2011, I accomplished one of the greatest things in my life: I graduated High School from Northern Burlington Regional here in New Jersey.

  13. Sold Blogussion for $20,0000

    July 2011

    By around this time, my heart was just not with Blogussion. In July, me and my partner, Rob Rammuny, ran a week-long auction in the Flippa marketplace and ended up selling Blogussion.com for $20,000.

  14. My newspaper interview

    December 19th, 2011

    In December, a local newspaper caught word of what I was doing online (but more specifically, how much money I was making). So, I got interviewed and a whole page in the Burlington County Times.

    It was my first real offline promotion, and the first time people in my community really got word of what I did for a living.

  15. Kolakube version 4

    February 1st, 2012

    Breaking the tradition of January 1st launches (a month late…), I came out with Kolakube 4.

    Kolakube is dedicated to helping people create smarter designs and selling my own premium Thesis skins.

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